How to Install Arch Linux in 2026 (Step by Step for Beginners)

This tutorial takes about 10 minutes to complete.

This guide shows how to install Arch Linux on your PC, from downloading the ISO to your first login, and which installer options to pick as a beginner and why. It follows the video, with the exact keys, button names and options from the recording.

New to Ventoy? The Ventoy page explains what it is, and the Windows 11 Ventoy walkthrough shows the Windows steps in more detail. If you are already running Arch Linux, there is also a guide to installing Ventoy on Arch Linux.

Warning: this is a fresh install. It formats everything on the drive you select, and there is no disk partitioning or dual boot. Back up anything important first.

Before you start

You need a PC, a USB stick or an external drive larger than 8 GB, and at least 25 GB of free disk space. You will also need a second computer, or the same PC while it still runs its current system, to download the ISO and prepare the USB drive. The video does this part on Windows 11, because many people switching to Linux are coming from Windows.

A wired internet connection is the easiest and most reliable way to connect.

Jump to a chapter in the video: Intro · Get the ISO · Ventoy USB · Copy ISO · Boot menu · Secure Boot fix · Install Arch · First boot

Step 1: Download the Arch Linux ISO

Open your browser and go to the official Arch Linux download page, archlinux.org/download. Scroll down until you see all the different countries, select the country you are in (the video picks the United States) and click one of the download mirrors.

On the mirror, look for the Arch Linux x86_64 ISO file. It should be close to 2 gigabytes. Click it to download. The video skips through the wait. When the download is done, go to your Downloads folder and you should see your Arch Linux ISO file.

The video also puts the ISO in its own folder, which is optional but keeps it easy to find. Right-click the ISO and click Cut. Go to This PC and the C drive, right-click, choose New, then Folder, and name it ISO. Open the folder and paste the ISO there.

Step 2: Download Ventoy

To make a bootable ISO drive, the video uses Ventoy. It turns your USB stick or external drive into a multi-boot ISO drive, so you can store multiple ISOs on it and boot from them.

Open the browser and go to ventoy.net. Click Downloads, scroll down, find the Ventoy Windows zip file and click it. Scroll down and find the Windows zip file again, then click it. Your download should start shortly.

Step 3: Extract Ventoy and open Ventoy2Disk

Once the download is finished, go to your Downloads folder and close the browser. Now you need to extract the zip file: right-click it, click Extract All, and then click Extract. The new folder should open.

Go inside the Ventoy folder and look for the Ventoy2Disk application. Double-click it, and click Yes to give administrator access. Now the Ventoy application is open.

Step 4: Select your USB drive

Connect your external USB drive. If you do not see your USB stick or external storage device, click the green refresh button. If you still do not see it, open the Options menu and click Show All Devices. This shows all the drives on your PC.

Warning: make sure not to install Ventoy on your main drive. Make sure you install it on your external drive. Also back up any important files you have, because this will format and erase everything on the disk.

Step 5: Turn on Secure Boot Support

Open the Options menu again and make sure Secure Boot Support is checked. In case you have any problems with Secure Boot errors, this should help fix it. Step 9 shows how to fix the Secure Boot errors if you still get one.

Step 6: Install Ventoy on the USB drive

Make sure you have everything backed up from your drive, and then click Install. A warning says the device will be formatted and all the data will be lost. Click Yes to continue.

A second window double-checks that you want to format the device and lose all the data. You can click Yes.

When it is finished you will see Congratulations: Ventoy has been successfully installed to the device. Click OK, and then close the Ventoy application.

Step 7: Copy the Arch Linux ISO to your Ventoy drive

Open the file manager. If you look on the side, you can see your Ventoy drive. Go to This PC and the C drive, find the ISO folder, right-click the ISO file and copy it. Go back to This PC, double-click the Ventoy drive, then right-click and paste the ISO file. When the ISO file has finished copying to the Ventoy drive, close the window.

Tip: for blazing fast speeds and more storage space, use an external NVMe drive. The NVMe enclosure tutorial shows how to build your own NVMe drive with an NVMe enclosure, and the Orico M.2 NVMe enclosure page has the product details.

Step 8: Boot from the USB with the boot menu key

Shut down your computer and reboot into the BIOS or boot menu. Plug the USB into the PC you are installing on, then restart and tap the boot menu key right as it powers on. The key depends on the brand. Here are some common ones.

You could also check your motherboard's documentation. Keys vary by model. If yours does not work, check the manual of your computer or motherboard.

Tap the key, do not hold it. Tap it repeatedly right after you press the power button, with the USB already plugged in. The boot menu lets you pick the USB drive once, and the BIOS setup key opens the firmware settings, where you can change the boot order.

Acer: on some models the F12 boot menu must first be enabled in the BIOS. Press F2, go to Main, set F12 Boot Menu to Enabled, then save and restart. Lenovo: many models also have a small Novo button that opens a boot menu.

If the key does nothing: fast boot can use up your keystrokes. On a Windows PC, hold Shift and click Restart, then choose Use a device and pick your USB drive. To open the BIOS setup that way, go to Troubleshoot, Advanced options, then UEFI Firmware Settings.

The boot menu keys for Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, Acer, MSI and Gigabyte are the ones said in the video. The BIOS setup keys, the Novo button and the Acer setting come from the manufacturers' support pages and other published lists: Dell, HP, MSI, Acer and the Gigabyte BIOS manual.

In your boot menu, locate your Ventoy drive. In the video, the first device shown is the Ventoy drive. Select it and press Enter.

Step 9: If you get the Secure Boot failure

If you see the error Verification failed: (0x1A) Security Violation, the video calls it the infamous secure boot failure. This is one of the Secure Boot errors, and the fix only takes a minute. Press Enter for OK. When it asks you to press any key to perform MOK management, press Enter.

Go down to Enroll key from disk and press Enter. The selected key will be enrolled into the MOK database. Make sure you select VTOYEFI and press Enter. Then scroll down until you see ENROLL_THIS_KEY_IN_MOKMANAGER.cer and press Enter.

Go down to Continue and press Enter. Choose to enroll the keys, scroll down to Yes and press Enter. Then press Enter again to reboot the PC.

Step 10: Boot the Ventoy drive and start archinstall

After the reboot, Ventoy has booted successfully. To install Arch Linux, press Enter on the ISO, boot into normal mode and choose the first option.

Make sure your PC is connected to the internet through a wired connection. The video does not use Wi-Fi. Arch Linux is installed here with the archinstall script: type archinstall and press Enter.

Step 11: Go through the archinstall options

These are the choices from the video, in the order of the archinstall menu. Press Enter on an entry to open it, and use Back when you are done.

Language and locales

Press Enter for the archinstall language and select your language: the video chooses English. Then go down to Locales, where you set the keyboard layout, the locale language, the encoding and the console font. The video keeps the US keyboard layout, selects the English US UTF-8 locale language, makes sure UTF-8 is the encoding and uses the default console font.

Mirrors and repositories

Select a region so archinstall loads the local mirrors: the video selects the United States. It does not add any custom servers or optional repositories.

Disk configuration

Go to Disk configuration, choose partitioning and then the best-effort default partition layout. Be careful here: make sure you select the correct hard drive. The video is not doing a dual boot setup. This is a complete fresh install, so the drive is formatted and everything on it is erased. Back up any important files first. In the video the install goes on the 50 GB hard drive.

For the file system the video recommends ext4 for beginners. It does not use LVM or disk encryption. Swap is left as default.

Bootloader and kernel

Go to Bootloader. You can select systemd-boot or GRUB: the video chooses GRUB. For the kernel, the video selects the default kernel, the first option. Additional firmware is skipped.

Host name, root password and user

Go to Hostname and enter your own host name for the computer. Then go to Authentication. If you want to set a root password, press Enter, enter your password and confirm it by typing it again. To set up a user account, choose add a user, enter a user name and a password, confirm the password, and select Yes to give the user sudo access. Then confirm and exit.

Profile, GNOME and graphics drivers

Go to Profile and choose the type Desktop. For the desktop the video selects GNOME, and recommends it if you are going to use AI locally. Then go to Graphics drivers and select the appropriate graphics driver for your GPU.

Applications, network and time zone

Under Applications the video configures Bluetooth (yes), chooses PipeWire for audio and turns on the print service. It uses UFW for the firewall, and you can pick additional fonts if you need any. Under Network configuration, select Use Network Manager with the default backend.

Go to Time zone and select the one for your location: the video selects US Central. Leave Automatic time sync as default.

Install

Go to Install and press Enter. archinstall says the specified configuration will be applied. Click Yes to continue and the installation begins.

Step 12: Finish the install and set up GNOME

When the Arch install has completed, go down to Reboot system and press Enter.

After the reboot, select Arch Linux, log in and enter your password. The video skips the tour.

Fix the display

Right-click, click Display settings and go to Resolution. In the video the resolution is changed to 4K, 3840 by 2160, and the scaling to 200% so you can see it. Click Apply and keep the changes.

Appearance

Then go to Appearance and select dark mode, and close the window.

You have now downloaded the Arch Linux ISO, made a Ventoy USB, booted it with your boot menu key, installed Arch Linux with archinstall and GNOME, and finished the first-boot setup. In the next video you will see how to install local AI using Ollama.

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